Look there are books, as Italo Calvino put it best, that I really do want to have read, and Adam Levin's 2010 debut The Instructions is one of them. It's huge and beautiful and deals in an utterly fascinating way with the story of the Maccabees (whom I think of as the most badass Jewish family, but that's neither here nor there). But I haven't, and so it remains on the list of Books I Haven't Read, perhaps even the list of Books I Mean To Read But There Are Other Books I Must Read First (*cough* Infinite Jest *cough*). And let's be frank -- it's mostly because that book is DAUNTING.

So, to the point! Good news for those of us, like me, intimidated by the prospect of a few months' worth of reading: Adam Levin has just released the wonderfully approachable Hot Pink.

Hot Pink is a collection of ten stories about "overweight romantics, legless prodigies, quixotic dollmakers, Chicagoland thugs, dirty old men, protective fathers, balloon-laden dumptrucks, and walls that ooze gels." In its pages, Levin channels George Saunders's almost-too-observant wit, and intermingles it with a tenderness for the many foibles of his protagonists.

Or if you don't believe me, believe the Large-Hearted Boy: "these stories are clever and diverse, and filled with dark humor
and the pathos that dwells behind the facade of everyday life."